Pesto New Year

Susa Valley

With another great Christmas in the books it was time to prepare for the next awesome holiday, New Year’s. The plan for New Year’s was simple: celebrate the New Year in Marco’s family’s cabin in the mountains – and that’s exactly what we did. The town was Chiomonte, about 45 minutes from the family’s house, and it sure was a small town. There would be about 15-20 people in attendance at the cabin, and Mattia and I were the first ones to arrive. We had to run some errands and buy some “supplies” for the New Year at a supermarket in nearby Susa, and while we did that we did a little bit of sightseeing as well. Susa is the big town nestled in the self-proclaimed Susa valley, surrounded by the Italian Alps and absolutely stunning. It had all the cool little rivers and cathedrals and Roman ruins that you could want in an Italian town tucked into the mountains. So we enjoyed ourselves walking around for a bit, Mattia showing me all the main sites, and then we made our way back to the cabin.

When we made it back to the cabin we made a fantastic Pesto Pasta lunch (I love Pesto more than most things), enjoyed a couple drinks, and played some poker while awaiting for the arrival of the others. When the others arrived it was time to begin the festivities with some amazing food that everyone brought (always way too much food) and of course, some drinks.

When the clock hit midnight we all left the cabin and walked around town, setting off little fireworks, making a ruckus, and having an awesome time. Later in the night as I continued having drinks, my Italian became fluent and everyone had a lot of fun.

The following day, on New Year’s Day, the partying continued and I don’t even think we left the cabin. There was a lot of Italian spoken at this cabin and my listening skills continued to progress which I was thankful for. However, sometimes it made it difficult to have good conversation, but anytime we played a game or something like that there was no language needed and we always had a blast.

I finally got to go snowboarding!

There’s not much else to say about New Year’s Day, but the following day was fantastic because we got to do something that I needed to do, and I finally got my fix of it while I was here: we went snowboarding! I wish we had woken up earlier that day because by the time we got on the mountain with all of our gear rented and everything, it was already about 2:30 in the afternoon and the place was going to close in 2 hours. We went to the small town of Cesana, which is connected to the entire Via Lattea ski system, the largest in Italy and possibly one of the largest ski areas in Europe. This is where they had most of the Winter Olympic events back in ’06. I wish we had more time to explore this area, and I also wish that there was more snow (there really wasn’t much here unfortunately, and it was already January!), but I’m still happy that I finally got to go. It was a great day overall, and after snowboarding we got back to the cabin, went to a bar, went back to the cabin again, ate more Pesto pasta, then Marco and I left the cabin back to Pianezza, took a shower, then went out on the town and arrived there at about 12:45am. We definitely got a late start to the night and I’m not entirely sure why we did that, but it was still a lot of fun as usual. The following few days were spent relaxing and hanging out in Pianezza, still enjoying plenty of home-cooked Italian food and basically just loving life. We went out a couple more nights but nothing crazy, just a few drinks with good friends and improving Italian listening skills.

Another very important thing that I should mention which I don’t think I’ve mentioned previously: For the sake of random fun and embarrassment, Alex and I played a game that was introduced to us by some of his Australian friends way back near the beginning of the trip. The rules of this game were simple: if you said the number “10” and someone playing the game caught you, then you would have to get down and do 10 pushups. It sounded easy at first, so we made the mistake of trying this out. We continued to play this game throughout the rest of our trip and we’ve done pushups just about everywhere. I never thought how many times I would say this horrible number, but sure enough we would continue to embarrass ourselves place after place. We ended up getting pretty good at it near the end, always saying “9+1” as a safe substitution, but occasionally we would still screw up and embarrass ourselves yet again.

The location of my New Year's celebration, in the small town of Chiomonte

I’m really surprised I’m mentioning this now and I wish I mentioned it earlier because of all the embarrassing and hilarious situations that have manifested from this “game.” But the reason why I mention it now is because we decided to play a variation of this horrible game with myself, Marco, and Mattia, and I figured it’s worth mentioning. When we all spoke English with each other it was hard not to notice some of the common words we found ourselves constantly saying all the time. So it was actually my horrible idea to make a game out of this. Because Alex was gone I had no means of doing pushups anymore which meant that I had to find an alternative solution in order to stay physically fit. This resulted in me introducing the game to Marco and Mattia and collaborating to determine which words were appropriate for each of us. For Marco, it was “Hey” (he often said this at the end of his sentences too, as if he was prepping himself for Australia – while doing pushups at the same time), for Mattia it was “yea, yea, yea” (he was often enthusiastic about his agreements with things), and for me it was “I mean” (I mean, it’s just a good filler when I’m having a conversation with someone). I’m going over this extensively because this is the impact that it had on our daily lives, not just with Alex but so much with Marco and Mattia as well. It was really mostly Marco and I that suffered, me in particular. The first night we really started playing this game I swear I must’ve done around 150 pushups. Mattia became too good at never saying his word, but Marco and I would constantly embarrass ourselves on a daily basis. From the train station to the supermarket to just about every bar we went to when we went out…at least we kept in shape I guess.

Enough of that crazy game…now I guess I don’t have to worry about it anymore because after two weeks of some of the best moments of this trip I finally had to leave Italy (and the entire Schengen zone of 26 countries for that matter) because I was on my 90^th day of my tourist visa and preferred not to risk overstaying. If I want to go back to any country in Western/Central Europe, I’m gonna have to wait until the end of March until I get a new 90 days. But that’s traveling for ya, and I guess it’s time to move on with the trip. I was honestly pretty sad to be leaving Torino. I was so comfortable for so long in such a familiar place. But there’s always more to see, and the adventure must continue…

Before closing this post I’ve got to give a HUGE shout out to Marco, Mattia, and their friends and family. Your family is awesome and I am beyond thankful for their hospitality and incredible food and memories. You guys gave me an amazing time during the holidays and I couldn’t have asked for a better way to spend them away from my own family. You guys became my Italian family and you always will be. Thank you, thank you, thank you!